Panels... Angry Debates.... and Clownboats
So…. two entries in a row after 7 weeks of silence…. oh my… world upside down.
So… anyway…. today was a memorable day. Monday I believe, Amir, one of the professors in my department, approached me and asked me to be part of a student panel for second year teachers at LMU regarding intercultural and diversity issues. I….. was really tempted to say no… as we had hell on ice the day before… see my previous entry… and a second event the same night as this panel. But… at the same time… it sounded like an awesome opportunity to gay it up and hurl some homosexuality at new professors. And to be clear… this was for second year at LMU teachers… some of whom may have taught for years at other schools, not just second year ever teachers.
So yeah… said yes and today was the day. We were asked to go over 4 questions ahead of time… I think I was the only one of the 5 of us students who had written notes coming in… guess I’m just anal like that. So the questions were to think of a time we felt excluded and such, to look over that time critically and address why we felt excluded, to think of a time where we felt included and such, and finally any suggestions, ideas, practices we thought beneficial for teachers to apply in the classroom.
So…. the whole thing is confidential and stuff… not going to blab about anything said there by someone else… but since I’m a total whore… I have no problem slathering my opinion and words all over the internet. You’d think I’d learn from all the times doing so had burned me…. no…. no… I just don’t learn.
Anyways…. I gave my opening spiel… things I’ve already written about on here… let’s start with the bad and Marquette… hi class on Ratzi where I wrote about gay marriage and the class tried to lynch me and the professor backed them up. Yeah…. I gave a brief and fairly generous account of it. Then I moved onto the positive… which was ironically Latino class… which I complained about all the damn time… but which… I must admit was one of the most accepting classes ever and one of the most encouraging of me to be myself and bring myself into the classroom classes.
Oh… interjection… Tuesday class this semester… Gospel of John with visiting prof.. So… I announced my atheism first class… and he hasn’t ceased to go all… so what’s your opinion of this as an atheist ever single class since. Anyway… he asked if any of us were married… and I said to Abby that I can’t get married in this state… so I guess that’s a no. I wasn’t looking at him, but she was… and she said he got the weirdest look on his face… all…. weird. So then he comes up to me and asks, “Are you of the homosexual orientation?” It was all…. huh what? I’m not even sure what that means. So I said yes and he shook my hand it was all weird. So after Abby is walking back to her car with me and is all…. how the hell did he not know you were gay? Yeah… I was like…. I mean I thought the fact that I study queer theology and am doing a paper on Jesus and the Beloved Disciple and their buttsex would’ve been like….. clue’s #1 through #809.
Anyway… back to the story… from there we just took questions. I got derailed by one of the other people who is involved with GSA here and knows more about me and talked forever….. but it was cool. I fielded some questions. The three actual intercultural ones… kinda didn’t contribute much of anything… all kind of… not having much in the way of experiences. I think… especially with LMU… ethnic diversity… not really a huge issue. So not a huge chance to encounter massive OMG there is a black person…. unlike my hometown…. where yeah… they do that. It’s like urgent weather reports…. across the bottom of the screen flashes…. BLACK PERSON SPOTTED ON CAPE COD!!!!!! And people wonder why I moved away.
So yeah…. it was fun an informative and the teachers were really into it and asked some great questions and I got hit hard with some… well.. you say this…. but what about that… really challenging me to think and answer well… and I think it was a real good discussion and fruitful. After we had kind of a free-for-all where profs could come and single us out. I got this bio professor who talked to me for 15 minutes about theory of teaching and philosophical issues of reaching people and experimenting with methods and the role of variation… such fun stuff. I was having such a blast. Absolute godliness. I was so so happy I decided to do it.
So…. moving onto the remainder of the evening. Time for event of controversy. It was an informal sit down with three profs about the canonization process of Pius XII. For those of you not down on Pius XII… he was the pope during the holocaust. The Vatican claims that he did a lot of work behind the scenes to save Jews from Hitler, but he never publicly spoke against Hitler or the holocaust. Moreover, the Vatican claims that Pius XII did a lot of work to save Jews… but the evidence they cite is locked away in the Vatican Archives which they will not release or open to anyone. Between that… and the fact that there just aren’t clear records and it was a tumultuous time… there are documents and arguments on both sides of whether Pius really did do work secretly to help the Jews or not. And now, recently, Our Lovely Sith Lord, Ratzinger of Benedict XVI fame…has stepped up the process looking to make Pius a saint. He’s already venerable and the next step is beatification. So we had speaking a rabbi who’s on the faculty part time, the one diocesan RC priest on the faculty whom I love and had class with last year, and an old Jesuit who teaches in the history department on this time period. Fun shit. I expected it to be passionate and interesting… I was not ready for the OMG yelling hatred and screaming.
So we started with the Rabbi… who was calm, talked over some points, and then got really emotional and loud and all how can the church even think of doing this, canonizing Hitler’s pope. Intense. I was shocked… and worst of all… we had a bobnbus guest. One of the profs from my department… who shares my alma mater…. and is known for being stodgy and confrontational and a dick when he disagrees… was all mumbling and muttering and making side comments throughout the Rabbi talking. It was all.. oh shit…he’s gonna go off on him.
From there we go to the RC priest… who for the evening… really was pretty neutral. His big thing was…. he wanted to get down to the bottom of this whole process. He’s pretty sure Ratzi is not the one responsible, that Ratzi himself is not the one pushing for the sainthood, but that others are. He brought up some good historical questions and issues, such as how the process seemed to start back in ’62 when a play (The Deputy) came out making Pius look like he supported Hitler as a means to ensure Rome’s financial interests in Germany. From here Vatican officials got pissed and sent Pius on the way of… wait he wasn’t that bad he did lots of good stuff. More importantly, he singled out the people now who are really pushing this issue.. and the fact that Ratzi himself has told them to back off and stop trying to rush it. It adds some interesting perspective on the connection to Ratzinger and lends to the idea that maybe Ratzi is aware enough to not be pushing this himself. As the Rabbi would say later… if this was happening with JPII… it would be a completely different conversation.
Why you ask? Well… quick history lesson on Ratzi and the Jews. Well…. early on comes the Tridentine mass that Ratzinger installed… a Latin mass… which caused trouble because the Good Friday prayer asks us to pray for the perfidious Jews and their blindness….. can’t imagine why Jews would be so upset about that. They really need to stop being so sensitive. One mass murder holocaust and they just can’t take a joke anymore. So… next on the list… the bishop Richard Williamson. Now why might this bishop be a problem…. well… to start he’s a member of the Society of Pius X… a society hat opposes Vatican II. I’d say that was bad enough that any association with him is terrible…. but that’s not the problem. The problem is that he denies the holocaust ever happened. Yeah…. telling Jews that 6 million of their people being tortured and murdered was really just their imaginations….. does not go over well with Jews. Again… hard to understand why they are so unreasonable about stuff like this. So now… follow this up with trying to make into a saint the pope that sat back on his ass and said nothing while Hitler killed (unless it really didn’t happen of course) 6 million Jews….. Ratzinger just screams good Catholic-Jewish dialogue.
So yeah…. if this had been JPII…. the Jewish people could probably be very reasonable and say hey… really… do you think this is the best idea and have a academic and respect on both sides debate. But with Ratzi…. our noble Sith… who has continued to do things to hurt the Jews… it’s just not possible.
So… moving on… after both had spoken… our bobnbus guest jumped in and started yelling and throwing a fit about how the Rabbi had no facts and all he had heard was opinion and emotion and how he wanted to know for fact what Pius did do and what we had record of. He was like a 3 year old throwing a temper tantrum. Yeah…. more and more I can see why first year my advisor told me… yeah… don’t ever take this guy… you will suffer great afflictions in his class. So yeah.. from there we went to history Jesuit… who got as passionate as the Rabbi defending Pius…. mainly in defending his mindset and fears and why he kept silent and then defending documentation about how he helped indirectly. Ultimately there are sources that say Pius helped and sources that say he did not… and neither side has an kind of irrefutable anything so it’s just a mess of interpretation of documents that don’t say enough to prove either side.
From there…. my beloved teacher the RC priest asked the fun question of the night…. ignoring everything we’ve discussed…. no matter what can be proven, if the Church does decide that it wants to and can canonize Pius XII…. should the church refrain from doing so, pastorally, in deference to the Jews and Jewish-Catholic dialogue. There was a resounding yes from people… and this is certainly his position.. God I love him. But yeah… it ended fairly peaceably… but there were some moments of wow it’s loud and scary… a few profs came in and heard and bolted rather than being dragged into it. Fun stuff.
After.. talking to the 6 undergrads or so who showed up in support of the Rabbi, he teaches them and is one of the awesomest people ever….. they were all… who was that grumpy and rude person… and me and Haydon are all… well… he’s a professor in the department… and they were all… ewww… why is he so rude and grumpy. It was hysterical. I wanted to die… he’s such a mean and unhappy man and I just don’t get how anyone likes him. One of the ancient ladies that is part of my gaggle of nuns that follows my every move… she’s like 90 and refers to gay people as “The homos”… she has him as her thesis director… and apparently all he does is yell at her and say to come see him in his office hours even though she’s told him more than once she can’t make it that time because she’s ancient, can’t drive herself there and can’t get a ride until later. Just such an unfriendly guy…. really the only one in the department.
Anyway… final win of the night…. my beloved RA at Haggerty, Tony. Fuck yeah…so talking to the Rabbi before the talk… lo and behold he also knows him so well… so we had a very long conversation on Tony’s sexuality and his mysterious “girlfriend” that he always had but no one met. Also…. apparently every two weeks he went away with this other guy and stayed in a hotel room with him…. like clockwork… they refer to the guy as Roberta…. apparently his name is Robert. Yeah…. fun shit. Oh Tony…… such a clownboat. I’ll never get over it.
So yeah… enough for now… it’s 5 AM… definitely time for sleep. Also…. roommate is gone for the night…. YAY WIN VICTORY SPAZ!!!!
So… anyway…. today was a memorable day. Monday I believe, Amir, one of the professors in my department, approached me and asked me to be part of a student panel for second year teachers at LMU regarding intercultural and diversity issues. I….. was really tempted to say no… as we had hell on ice the day before… see my previous entry… and a second event the same night as this panel. But… at the same time… it sounded like an awesome opportunity to gay it up and hurl some homosexuality at new professors. And to be clear… this was for second year at LMU teachers… some of whom may have taught for years at other schools, not just second year ever teachers.
So yeah… said yes and today was the day. We were asked to go over 4 questions ahead of time… I think I was the only one of the 5 of us students who had written notes coming in… guess I’m just anal like that. So the questions were to think of a time we felt excluded and such, to look over that time critically and address why we felt excluded, to think of a time where we felt included and such, and finally any suggestions, ideas, practices we thought beneficial for teachers to apply in the classroom.
So…. the whole thing is confidential and stuff… not going to blab about anything said there by someone else… but since I’m a total whore… I have no problem slathering my opinion and words all over the internet. You’d think I’d learn from all the times doing so had burned me…. no…. no… I just don’t learn.
Anyways…. I gave my opening spiel… things I’ve already written about on here… let’s start with the bad and Marquette… hi class on Ratzi where I wrote about gay marriage and the class tried to lynch me and the professor backed them up. Yeah…. I gave a brief and fairly generous account of it. Then I moved onto the positive… which was ironically Latino class… which I complained about all the damn time… but which… I must admit was one of the most accepting classes ever and one of the most encouraging of me to be myself and bring myself into the classroom classes.
Oh… interjection… Tuesday class this semester… Gospel of John with visiting prof.. So… I announced my atheism first class… and he hasn’t ceased to go all… so what’s your opinion of this as an atheist ever single class since. Anyway… he asked if any of us were married… and I said to Abby that I can’t get married in this state… so I guess that’s a no. I wasn’t looking at him, but she was… and she said he got the weirdest look on his face… all…. weird. So then he comes up to me and asks, “Are you of the homosexual orientation?” It was all…. huh what? I’m not even sure what that means. So I said yes and he shook my hand it was all weird. So after Abby is walking back to her car with me and is all…. how the hell did he not know you were gay? Yeah… I was like…. I mean I thought the fact that I study queer theology and am doing a paper on Jesus and the Beloved Disciple and their buttsex would’ve been like….. clue’s #1 through #809.
Anyway… back to the story… from there we just took questions. I got derailed by one of the other people who is involved with GSA here and knows more about me and talked forever….. but it was cool. I fielded some questions. The three actual intercultural ones… kinda didn’t contribute much of anything… all kind of… not having much in the way of experiences. I think… especially with LMU… ethnic diversity… not really a huge issue. So not a huge chance to encounter massive OMG there is a black person…. unlike my hometown…. where yeah… they do that. It’s like urgent weather reports…. across the bottom of the screen flashes…. BLACK PERSON SPOTTED ON CAPE COD!!!!!! And people wonder why I moved away.
So yeah…. it was fun an informative and the teachers were really into it and asked some great questions and I got hit hard with some… well.. you say this…. but what about that… really challenging me to think and answer well… and I think it was a real good discussion and fruitful. After we had kind of a free-for-all where profs could come and single us out. I got this bio professor who talked to me for 15 minutes about theory of teaching and philosophical issues of reaching people and experimenting with methods and the role of variation… such fun stuff. I was having such a blast. Absolute godliness. I was so so happy I decided to do it.
So…. moving onto the remainder of the evening. Time for event of controversy. It was an informal sit down with three profs about the canonization process of Pius XII. For those of you not down on Pius XII… he was the pope during the holocaust. The Vatican claims that he did a lot of work behind the scenes to save Jews from Hitler, but he never publicly spoke against Hitler or the holocaust. Moreover, the Vatican claims that Pius XII did a lot of work to save Jews… but the evidence they cite is locked away in the Vatican Archives which they will not release or open to anyone. Between that… and the fact that there just aren’t clear records and it was a tumultuous time… there are documents and arguments on both sides of whether Pius really did do work secretly to help the Jews or not. And now, recently, Our Lovely Sith Lord, Ratzinger of Benedict XVI fame…has stepped up the process looking to make Pius a saint. He’s already venerable and the next step is beatification. So we had speaking a rabbi who’s on the faculty part time, the one diocesan RC priest on the faculty whom I love and had class with last year, and an old Jesuit who teaches in the history department on this time period. Fun shit. I expected it to be passionate and interesting… I was not ready for the OMG yelling hatred and screaming.
So we started with the Rabbi… who was calm, talked over some points, and then got really emotional and loud and all how can the church even think of doing this, canonizing Hitler’s pope. Intense. I was shocked… and worst of all… we had a bobnbus guest. One of the profs from my department… who shares my alma mater…. and is known for being stodgy and confrontational and a dick when he disagrees… was all mumbling and muttering and making side comments throughout the Rabbi talking. It was all.. oh shit…he’s gonna go off on him.
From there we go to the RC priest… who for the evening… really was pretty neutral. His big thing was…. he wanted to get down to the bottom of this whole process. He’s pretty sure Ratzi is not the one responsible, that Ratzi himself is not the one pushing for the sainthood, but that others are. He brought up some good historical questions and issues, such as how the process seemed to start back in ’62 when a play (The Deputy) came out making Pius look like he supported Hitler as a means to ensure Rome’s financial interests in Germany. From here Vatican officials got pissed and sent Pius on the way of… wait he wasn’t that bad he did lots of good stuff. More importantly, he singled out the people now who are really pushing this issue.. and the fact that Ratzi himself has told them to back off and stop trying to rush it. It adds some interesting perspective on the connection to Ratzinger and lends to the idea that maybe Ratzi is aware enough to not be pushing this himself. As the Rabbi would say later… if this was happening with JPII… it would be a completely different conversation.
Why you ask? Well… quick history lesson on Ratzi and the Jews. Well…. early on comes the Tridentine mass that Ratzinger installed… a Latin mass… which caused trouble because the Good Friday prayer asks us to pray for the perfidious Jews and their blindness….. can’t imagine why Jews would be so upset about that. They really need to stop being so sensitive. One mass murder holocaust and they just can’t take a joke anymore. So… next on the list… the bishop Richard Williamson. Now why might this bishop be a problem…. well… to start he’s a member of the Society of Pius X… a society hat opposes Vatican II. I’d say that was bad enough that any association with him is terrible…. but that’s not the problem. The problem is that he denies the holocaust ever happened. Yeah…. telling Jews that 6 million of their people being tortured and murdered was really just their imaginations….. does not go over well with Jews. Again… hard to understand why they are so unreasonable about stuff like this. So now… follow this up with trying to make into a saint the pope that sat back on his ass and said nothing while Hitler killed (unless it really didn’t happen of course) 6 million Jews….. Ratzinger just screams good Catholic-Jewish dialogue.
So yeah…. if this had been JPII…. the Jewish people could probably be very reasonable and say hey… really… do you think this is the best idea and have a academic and respect on both sides debate. But with Ratzi…. our noble Sith… who has continued to do things to hurt the Jews… it’s just not possible.
So… moving on… after both had spoken… our bobnbus guest jumped in and started yelling and throwing a fit about how the Rabbi had no facts and all he had heard was opinion and emotion and how he wanted to know for fact what Pius did do and what we had record of. He was like a 3 year old throwing a temper tantrum. Yeah…. more and more I can see why first year my advisor told me… yeah… don’t ever take this guy… you will suffer great afflictions in his class. So yeah.. from there we went to history Jesuit… who got as passionate as the Rabbi defending Pius…. mainly in defending his mindset and fears and why he kept silent and then defending documentation about how he helped indirectly. Ultimately there are sources that say Pius helped and sources that say he did not… and neither side has an kind of irrefutable anything so it’s just a mess of interpretation of documents that don’t say enough to prove either side.
From there…. my beloved teacher the RC priest asked the fun question of the night…. ignoring everything we’ve discussed…. no matter what can be proven, if the Church does decide that it wants to and can canonize Pius XII…. should the church refrain from doing so, pastorally, in deference to the Jews and Jewish-Catholic dialogue. There was a resounding yes from people… and this is certainly his position.. God I love him. But yeah… it ended fairly peaceably… but there were some moments of wow it’s loud and scary… a few profs came in and heard and bolted rather than being dragged into it. Fun stuff.
After.. talking to the 6 undergrads or so who showed up in support of the Rabbi, he teaches them and is one of the awesomest people ever….. they were all… who was that grumpy and rude person… and me and Haydon are all… well… he’s a professor in the department… and they were all… ewww… why is he so rude and grumpy. It was hysterical. I wanted to die… he’s such a mean and unhappy man and I just don’t get how anyone likes him. One of the ancient ladies that is part of my gaggle of nuns that follows my every move… she’s like 90 and refers to gay people as “The homos”… she has him as her thesis director… and apparently all he does is yell at her and say to come see him in his office hours even though she’s told him more than once she can’t make it that time because she’s ancient, can’t drive herself there and can’t get a ride until later. Just such an unfriendly guy…. really the only one in the department.
Anyway… final win of the night…. my beloved RA at Haggerty, Tony. Fuck yeah…so talking to the Rabbi before the talk… lo and behold he also knows him so well… so we had a very long conversation on Tony’s sexuality and his mysterious “girlfriend” that he always had but no one met. Also…. apparently every two weeks he went away with this other guy and stayed in a hotel room with him…. like clockwork… they refer to the guy as Roberta…. apparently his name is Robert. Yeah…. fun shit. Oh Tony…… such a clownboat. I’ll never get over it.
So yeah… enough for now… it’s 5 AM… definitely time for sleep. Also…. roommate is gone for the night…. YAY WIN VICTORY SPAZ!!!!